Lameness is a leading problem in pig farming causing welfare issues. These welfare issues have economical impacts in return, due to a decline in growth rate. The economic loss per pig in the Netherlands is approximately €9,08. The present study is a continuation of a previous study by van Rijssel ... read more on the macroscopic cartilage changes in non-castrated boars and gilts. The focus of this study is the microscopic cartilage changes most likely caused by osteochondrosis, since this is reported to be the primary cause of lameness in pigs. Since no histological scoring system has been published for joints of pigs, to our knowledge, a new scoring system was designed based on previously published morphological changes of cartilage due to osteochondrosis. In total, four animals showed signs of osteochondrosis (10%) and two animals showed signs of osteoarthrose (5%). The correlations between the macroscopic and microscopic lesions in the articular cartilage of porcine tarsal joints harvested in one Dutch slaughterhouse were analysed. The group of pigs with normal and mild macroscopic lesions were not significantly different from one another. The group with severe macroscopic lesions was the only group to differ significantly from the other groups after microscopic examination (p&lt;0.0005). In conclusion, only severe macroscopic lesions of the articular cartilage were correlated with severe microscopic lesions with two animals showing signs of osteochondrosis and two showing signs of osteoarthrose in this group. In the groups of normal and mild macroscopic lesions, each group contained only one animal with signs of osteochondrosis. In these pigs it is possible that osteochondrosis was the cause for the swollen joints, however the cause for remainder of the pigs of swollen joints cannot be determined. show less

Download/Full Text

Not available. The author may have various reasons for not providing access, for instance because it is prohibited by the commissioner of the research, or because the author is conducting further research on the subject.